The most overt reference I've made in a while. Sac clause is optional, but seems fun enough.

Huh, I just automatically read that as a goblin.

It was a goblin. I was just thinking that the flavor was slightly off. It can be returned into a goblin if it is that big of a deal. Also gnomes.

The sacrifice clause dillutes the flavor.

changed fomratting and tinker

Hmmm. I still like it being clear about what it is verbing. For exploit, you are exploiting a creature. I think we should have a verb that works with the structure "X's a Y". Tinkers an artifact doesn't quite work as well.

"Tinkers with an artifact"?

that's certainly the grammatically correct form, but it reads pretty strangely when put aside exploit creatures

i think this might just not be the right word for the mechanic

how about deconstruct? "when X deconstructs an artifact, Y" seems pretty readable to me. also has the advantage of being immediately mentally associated with sacrificing an artifact, whereas tinker conjures up imagery of a wizard with a screwdriver poking around inside a robot or something. yes yes i know tinker sacrifices an artifact but it does it to get another artifact; IMO the flavor there is an artifact being reshaped into another artifact. generalising tinker to be a sac trigger for other abilities is less believable because sometimes the ability is just "deal 2 damage". is the artifact being reshaped into a spell or something?

I recommend dropping exploit's template. Then you won't have this issue. "Tinker -- When ~ ETBs, you may sacrifice an artifact. If you do, X." It's shorter, clearer, and doesn't have some of the weird fringe cases exploit has.

that's a really good solution

Tinker's formatting isn't an issue to be concentrating on before the first playtest. Concentrate on the gameplay and we can worry about the best way to word it later.